The Expendables hits theaters this August. Be like Jason Statham with this workout from Men’s Health.
manified.
Health
Upgrade Your Abs
February 11th, 2010 | Published in Health
By: Carter Hays, C.S.C.S., Edited by: Matt Bean, Men’s Health
Middle Management
The series of ab exercise workouts below will challenge your strength, stability, and muscular endurance. The result: A midsection that performs great and looks even better. Do these ab exercises 2 or 3 days a week, resting at least a day between sessions. Rest no more than 20 seconds between sets.
Week 1: 3 sets of the plank, then 3 sets of 12 reps of a basic crunch (not shown)
Week 2: 3 sets of the plank, then 3 sets of the band crunch
Week 3: 3 sets of the Swiss-ball plank, then 3 sets of the band crunch
Week 4: 3 sets of the alternating plank, then 3 sets of the scissor-kick crunch
How to Re-Create a Fancy Steakhouse Dinner at Home On the Cheap
February 10th, 2010 | Published in Health
By Lisa Hoover, Lifehacker
While it’s true that sometimes nothing beats the atmosphere and personal attention of dinner at a fine restaurant, it can also set you back $100 or more. Try re-creating the experience at home for less than half that amount.
Family advice blogger Amy Clark had to give up dining out after a decrease in income and the birth of her two children. Now she and her husband indulge themselves in a great steak dinner by hauling out the fine china, pouring wine into fancy stemware, and cooking up some prime cuts of beef right in their own kitchen.
Clark did some digging and put together a great menu (complete with instructions) of marinated, grilled steak, roasted red potatoes, and pan-friend asparagus that rivals just about any steak joint out there. If you’re not into grilling outdoors in the middle of a blizzard, she’s got you covered there, too—just use a heavy, cast iron grill pan right on the stove top.
The toughest part of getting your steak cooked to perfection is knowing how long to grill it. The ideal length of time depends on what cut of meat you start with and how rare you want it, but Clark offers a general timetable to get you started:
30 Minute Chest Workout
February 2nd, 2010 | Published in Health
By Nick Nilsson, C.P.T., Men’s Fitness
Guys love to train chest. So much so, in fact, that they’ll spend an hour or more on it, pounding their pecs with so many sets that they look enormous by the time they leave the gym. As soon as their “pump” deflates, however, they’re left with the same sunken chests they’ve always had—and a lot of soreness. Our plan trains your chest twice as hard in half as long and yields results you keep.
Actually, the chest component of each workout takes only about 10 minutes to complete. You’ll hit it hard using supersets and tri-sets with little rest in between, then train the rest of your body in the remaining 20 minutes. This will allow you to maintain size and strength everywhere else, as well as cause the release of muscle-building hormones that will enhance the results you see in your chest.
The first workout starts with a modified tri-set for the chest, designed to pump your pecs and stretch the connective tissue that surrounds them, thereby allowing more room under your skin for the muscles to grow. The second chest blast is done by pairing pushups with very heavy sets of dumbbell bench presses. Though you’ll be brutally sore afterward, the combination of high and low reps will flush an enormous amount of blood into your chest and maximize the recruitment of your biggest muscle fibers, setting the stage for big gains.
On the third day, you’ll do a variation on an old bodybuilding technique called “running down the rack.” You’ll perform dumbbell bench presses on an incline, flat, and then decline bench without rest in between. nstead of lightening the load on each set and reducing the demand on your muscles (the way the technique is normally done), you’ll simply change the angle from incline to flat to decline—this puts you in progressively stronger mechanical positions, so you can keep the superset going without having to stop or switch dumbbells.
Directions:
Frequency: Perform each workout (Days I, II, and III) once per week, resting at least a day between each session.
How To Do It: Perform the exercises marked lowercase a and b, or lowercase a, b, and c, as a modified superset or tri-set, as prescribed. That means you’ll complete one set for each exercise in order, resting or not resting as prescribed between sets. So you’ll do one set of a, then one set of b, and repeat, or one set of a, b, and then c. Rest after the last exercise in the group, and then repeat the process for the prescribed number of sets. Perform the remaining exercises as straight sets, completing all the prescribed sets for one exercise before moving on to the next.
Weight: Except where otherwise noted, use the heaviest weight that allows you to complete all the prescribed repetitions for a given set.
The workouts: Day 1
Customer Appreciation Event @ Subway – Free Breakfast
February 1st, 2010 | Published in Health | 1 Comment
Subway is giving away free Breakfast Melt sandwiches and Seattle’s Best coffee on February 2nd from 7am – 11am at all participating Southern California locations, no purchase necessary. [Call your local Subway to see if they are participating in this promotion]
We all know that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, but quite frankly sometimes it’s just easier to skip it or run through a drive-thru. Studies have shown that people who do not eat breakfast have a slower metabolism to their counterpart and tend to over eat at lunch and dinner. So people on the go often turn to drive-thru breakfast menus that are greasy, low in nutrition and made with less than fresh ingredients.
Subway breakfast sandwiches are a great way to kick start your day and is the best healthy alternative to drive-thru menus. Their breakfast sandwiches are deliciously filling and you can add all the Subway veggie fresh fixings to your liking. As a healthy choice, you can’t really beat Subway’s $1.75 – $3.50 breakfast sandwiches. When was the last time you had a full serving of veggies for breakfast?
Men’s Health Super Foods: Oats!
January 28th, 2010 | Published in Health
Fiber is the secret to losing weight without hunger. One U.S. Department of Agriculture study found that those who increased their daily fiber intake from 12 grams to 24 absorbed 90 fewer calories per day than those who ate the same amount of food but less fiber. Do nothing to your diet other than add more of the rough stuff, and you will lose nine pounds in a year, effortlessly.
Protein: A Guide to Maximum Muscle
January 26th, 2010 | Published in Health | 1 Comment
If you want to build muscle or lose weight, there’s nothing more important you can add to your diet than protein. But the concept of “protein” can be confusing, even to me, and I’m a nutritionist. Between all those pro and con news reports, the protein-boosting supplements, and the myths you hear at the gym, it’s tough to figure out the truth. That’s why we’re stepping into the ring: to help you separate protein fact from protein fiction, once and for all.
How much protein does the average guy need?
Continue reading →
Look Better Now: An Interview with a Skin Expert
January 25th, 2010 | Published in Health
Expert: Dennis Gross, M.D., Manhattan dermatologist, creator of MD Skincare (mdskincare.com), and author of Your Future Face
Interview By: Brittany Risher, Men’s Health
What can I do every day for great-looking skin? —Brendan
Dr. Gross: To my mind, there are seven rules of thumb that will help put you on the path to amazing-looking skin:
1. Think healthy heart, healthy skin: All the food we’ve been told to eat and to avoid for the prevention of heart disease can also benefit our skin.
2. Stock up on antioxidants: Any foods with antioxidants—such as vitamins C and E, lycopene, and green tea extract—are considered to have heart-healthy and even cancer-fighting benefits. The bonus? Many of them destroy the free radicals that eat away at our skin’s building blocks, collagen and elastin. A diet rich in bright, multicolored vegetables and fruits will go far to ensure you are getting enough of these great defenders on a daily basis.
3. Eat everything—in moderation: Diets that advise you to cut out entire food groups will cause you to miss some of the nutrients necessary for overall health and fabulous-looking skin.
4. Chew: It’s better to try to get your nutrients from food rather than from supplements.
5. Drink water: Not drinking enough water causes dehydration of both the skin and body. This makes our complexion look less firm, radiant, and plump.
6. Drink alcohol moderately: While some research indicates that moderate amounts of liquor can benefit the heart, excessive drinking just isn’t healthy. We’ve all had too much to drink and awakened the next morning looking and feeling bad.
7. Cut down on caffeine: Believe it or not, caffeine actually affects the body in many of the same ways alcohol does. Excess caffeine can cause dehydration, disrupt sleep, trigger stress hormones, and because it engorges veins, it can also cause broken capillaries. Our skin and health would benefit greatly if we limited our caffeine consumption to only one or two cups of coffee a day.
The World’s Most Underrated Exercise
January 19th, 2010 | Published in Health | 1 Comment
The Side Lunge
When it comes to lunges, do you have a one-track mind? If you only perform the exercise by stepping forward and backward, the answer is yes. And that’s too bad because side lunges–that’s right, lunging to the side–may be one of the best movements you can do for your lower body. The reason: Side lunges work the muscles of your hips and thighs from an all-new angle. This, of course, can spark muscle growth, as well as improve the stability of your knees–lowering your risk of injury. Now, the side lunge doesn’t look that challenging, but if you haven’t tried it before, you may be surprised at how difficult it is to perform with proper form. (Hint: Most people do this exercise wrong.) Chances are, you’ll only need a light pair of dumbbells–or even just your body-weight–to perform an intense set of 10 repetitions.
Learn the proper way to perform this exercise after the jump. Continue reading →
Eat Pasta and Lose Weight!
January 14th, 2010 | Published in Health
- Image via Wikipedia
Practice that fork twirl! Turns out you can enjoy spaghetti, rigatoni and all the rest, and still drop pounds— Continue reading →
Eggs-cellent
January 10th, 2010 | Published in Health
When it comes to breakfast, you can’t beat eggs. (That was too easy, wasn’t it?) Seriously, at a cost of only 72 calories, each large egg holds 6.3 grams of high-quality protein and a powerhouse load of vital nutrients.
Slim Down With a Cup of Joe
January 7th, 2010 | Published in Health
Coffee reduces your appetite, increases your metabolism, and gives you a shot of antioxidants. A study published in the journal Physiology & Behavior found that the average metabolic rate of people who drink caffeinated coffee is 16 percent higher than that of those who drink decaf.
No Pain No Gain: TRX Suspension Training
November 25th, 2009 | Published in Health
Are your workouts becoming routine and boring? It’s important to switch things up from time to time to avoid fitness plateaus. Muscle memory tells us that the more we do a certain exercise over time, the easier it becomes and gains are reduced. Challenge your muscles with “unconventional” exercises to keep your body working overtime and burn more calories.
The newest kid on the workout block is the TRX Suspension Training and it is guaranteed to add flavor and intensity into your workouts. Take a look at this video and the workouts will speak for themselves.
Colorize
November 4th, 2009 | Published in Health
Variety is the spice of life. If you can get nine servings of fruit and vegetables a day, you may not have to sacrifice your favorites…
Continue reading →
The Breakfast Club
November 3rd, 2009 | Published in Health
Champions don’t rush out of the door, they understand breakfast was invented to give them the fuel they need to work hard and smart all day long…
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